1. Dale Luciano on Yummy Fur in TCJ (mid-80s).
2. Any of Eddie Campbell's articles on comics from Bacchus, Egomania, and TCJ.
3. Gary Groth on Will Eisner's late 80s work in TCJ (1988?).
4. Dave Sim's comments about A Contract With God in Following Cerebus #4.
5. Ng Suat Tong on Kurtzman's war comics in TCJ (2003).

(5) Geoff Klock, How to Read Superhero Comics and Why (Harold Bloom meets Planetary. 'nuff said.)
(6) Thierry Groensteen, "Un premier bouquet de contraintes", partial translation by Matt Madden here:
http://www.newhatstories.com/oubapo/constraints/groensteen/index.html
-- not quite criticism as such, but mind-expanding writing on comics, so I'll count it. Madden's recent 99 Ways to Tell a Story can be looked at as a translation of that list into comics...

There. That's either four or six, depending on how you count. Average the two, and I did five!

*****

Christopher Duffy

In no particular order
1. James Witek--"Comics As History"
2. "The Rhetoric of the Image" by Roland Barthes
3. Mark Newgarden's essay on Bushmiller's Nancy (his own Love's Savage Fury is kind of an essay too)
4. Alan Moore on Jaime's Locas as a "liveable world"...I forget where this ran! As an intro to one of the collections?
5. That recent essay on race in Krazy Kat...not able to recall the author, but it was very well written
and...I beg you to allow me:
6. James Agee essays on Silent Film...not comics, but it should be held up as an example of unpretentious, well-written essay-writing on characters in visual media